is bnha getting good again? all the out of context manga panels I'm seeing are very funny and charming and also intriguing (for context, I stopped way back around the eri stuff)
i struggled so so much with the basement arc, but like the second it was over, the manga took an immediate turn back into really, really good and has maintained a very high level of goodness, with some forays into making me personally go a bit feral at how good it is, as well as some dips into 'okay horikoshi'.
it took me a while to properly get into the manga, and buy into what horikoshi was doing, and i still struggle a bit with a specific part of his overall argument, one which is deeply woven into the themes and narrative. but because it's so integral to the story as whole, and therefore embedded into the structure of it, the fact i struggle with it stands outside of the story rather than affecting the quality of the story itself.
mostly that just means that as we get closer to the climax of the story, some of the more major emotional points don't hit me the way they probably should, but at that point that's very much a me problem, and really just takes us back to the "original sin" of horikoshi writing a superhero story because he loves superhero stories and me reading a superhero story despite the fact that superhero stories are really very much not my thing. like.....that one's fully on me.
i think horikoshi isn't a perfect writer, but i think those flaws appear mostly at the arc and chapter level (and the wsj sexism level......). at the macro level, i stand constantly in awe of how deftly he's woven the separate threads of his overarching plot together, in particular the threads involving the todoroki family, which are in their own right immensely complex, but which horikoshi has, for the most part, fit into the narrative's build and structure in a way that i find truly impressive.
and, of course, i love his characters. they're fun, they've got vitality, they're messy and imperfect and, what's a real joy is, i trust horikoshi with their imperfections. he introduced some really difficult elements, stuck by his vision for them, and has pretty much across the board, imo, stuck his landing on them. he's got great character dynamics, some truly fantastic ensemble work, and genuine complexity in some of the manga's most fundamental relationships, complexity which he very much does justice.
so i guess my answer is that, yes, it's getting good again, but also that, basement arc aside (which i think was more an issue of arc pacing than anything else), it wasn't at any point not good. but yet again also that your mileage will definitely vary depending on the degree to which you vibe with horikoshi's overall vision for the story. i already know that there's a lot about the climax that i will probably personally not enjoy as much as i've enjoyed other parts of this manga, but that's not going to be because it's not well done, it's going to be because i'm choosing to read a story that wasn't really written for me but that is crafted well enough that i love it anyway.
(if ever anyone wants to be convinced to read bnha, @makeste says it all better, and funnier, than anyone else ever will. i would not have picked up this manga or stuck with it without her and her incomparable weekly recaps. she is a joy and a gem and we don't deserve her.)
